M2K Scarlet Spider
by Marvel2000Fanfic
Summary: In M2K continuity, Ben Reilly has adopted the Scarlet Spider persona full time. This new series sees him move to Las Vegas, where he'll encounter many new adversaries and challenges. Check out our site for more issues and stories!


Make sure to visit our site, .com, for more exciting stories and series!

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 **Scarlet Spider #1- Viva**

 **Written by Anthony Crute**

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"Start spreading the news…" Ben Reilley hummed to himself under his mask as he dangled his feet off the edge of the Stature of Liberty's crown. He was flicking through the papers that he had bought to look for a job interview. A new fresh start, something he always found himself looking for "…New York, New York."

He looked out at the Las Vegas strip and exhaled gently "Close enough anyway. Lady Liberty, tomorrow you're going to have to be Lady Luck". He stood and stretched letting the warm evening air bathe his body, he gave a big wave to a group who had just reached the pinnacle of the roller coaster and were preparing to plunge over the edge. In time with them, he fell backwards firing out a line of webbing.

He whipped through the crisp desert air moving faster than he would normally due to the lower humidity. The high rises were further apart than the skyscrapers in New York which changed the rate of his swings.

The bright flashing lights, however, were a little distracting and threw his swing slightly.

"Stop, thief! He stole my bag!" screamed someone on the side walk off to his left. He reacted with well honed instincts and signalled in on the noise, then let his eyes move in the direction she was pointing. People were dodging out of the way of, or being shoved by, a man who was running at full pelt.

"Same as always," shrugged Ben as he altered his positioning to change his direction and quicken his swing. He angled himself in-line with the mugger. The mugger felt a shadow fall over him and glanced up slightly just before slamming his head into the floor, his feet bound with a blob of impact webbing.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the red and gold figure who was gleaming in the flashing lights from the surrounding casinos. The Scarlet Spider was crouched over him. "Spider-Man? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I know there's a family resemblance but I have really got to work on my PR…I had my own TV show for crying out loud. The other guy has had no exposure on the west coast." Ben suddenly became aware of the crowd of tourists who had gathered around taking photos of him. He stood up grabbing the ladies purse and waved faux nervously to the crowd "All just another night for your friendly neighbourhood Scarlet Spider….okay stuff like that blurs brand identity, I get it."

Two bystanders were watching with even greater interest than the others. They were two well-dressed men in their late 30s or early 40s. "Is this a bad sign?" asked the younger blonde to his older friend.

"No, this changes nothing," he said as he watched the overweight, badly dressed woman who had her bag snatched hug Scarlet Spider. "In fact maybe we could use this?"

"You kidding me?" the younger man said with a shake of his head. "We've already got a plan with more moving parts than Mouse Trap. If we pull this off they'll have to make a new Oceans movie about us."

"When! Not if my, friend. When we pull this off tomorrow it will be the biggest heist in Vegas history and we can watch our legend grow whilst sipping fancy cocktails on some beach. Nah, the spider guy won't be an issue at all."

There was someone else who took a special interest in the sight of the web spinner. He sat in the window of Starbucks across the street watching cautiously, whilst trying to avoid the awful 'Jazz' album playing in the background. He sank back in his seat away from the glass just on the off-chance that he would be spotted.

He had put all of that behind him now. No more tangling with super powers. He had hit the nail on the head when he moved to Las Vegas to take up his new position but it looked like even they liked to vacation in Sin City.

"Flint Marko," said a deep rumbling voice to his right. The Sandman turned his head slightly and looked up at the figure that was standing there. He was nearly seven feet tall and built with a similar muscle structure as The Juggernaut, even though he knew that this particular individual had no superhuman powers. He was African American and was dressed in a charcoal grey suit, he wore large sunglasses covering his eyes and had on his fingers several gold rings. He was flanked on either side by equally imposing gentlemen who were more casually dressed in football jerseys.

"I guess so," Marko said as he turned his attention back out to the spider. He'd been around the block enough times to be less than impressed with the newest up-and-coming gangster until they had done something special

"An odd choice of a meeting place. You could have come to my palatial penthouse."

"I could've done a lot of things. I like the muffins here," he said. Noticeably without a muffin.

"I've got muffins back at my place."

"I like the muffins here."

He laughed gently, gently for him being anything but a huge guffaw. "So you're the Sandman. Do you know who I am?"

Marko turned to look at him. It was a loaded question, he looked for expression in the man's face but just got a stone glare from behind the sunglasses. His face, despite being made of a mineral, no matter how well disguised, wasn't as unreadable.

"I'm the Kingpin around…"

Marko let out a smirk "I got a feeling that'll come back and bit you in the ass," he rubbed his mouth with his hand to wipe the smile away before glancing out at the now departing Scarlet Spider.

"Maybe it will…maybe I'll take a chunk out of Fisk's business…maybe I'll bury the lard ass out in the desert," Kingpin spoke calmly and strongly again not letting any emotion bleed into his voice, he weighed each option as if they were equally as likely

Marko grinned for a different reason now. This guy had balls. He liked that. "You want to hire me?"

"You know what, Mr Marko? I've managed to keep myself off any big radars so my life isn't well known. I came up from nothing in LA. Riots, gangs and all. I got my big break to turn my life around when I stopped working for others and started working for myself. How about I don't employ you…how about we become business partners?"

"I'm not looking to buy into a time share," Marko shook his head. "How about you pay me up front and if it looks like whatever it is will get me more money I'll think about a partnership then?"

Kingpin laughed aloud. It was a deafening sound. "Can you start tomorrow?" He held out his huge meat hook of a hand.

"No, I've got other plans, but I can start the day after that…depending on the job." Kingpin lowered his hand, nodded slowly and then leaned forward to outline his job.

 _The next morning…_

Ben took another look at the papers that he'd brought with him. A list a mile long that the university had asked for from birth certificate to undergraduate degree certificate. All were forgeries, of course, provided for him by Judas Traveller or Ezekiel Sims. It wasn't his fault that he was the genetic clone of Peter Parker, and thus didn't have any legitimate documentation of his existence. He knew that all of the documents were airtight and had passed God knows how many tests and checks in their lifetime. He still got a lump the size of a fist in his throat every time he needed to pass them off. The nerves he felt for the job interview weren't really helping him.

He was crammed onto a bus, shoulder to shoulder with every other commuter in the city, or so it felt in the rapidly warming Nevada sun. He had decided to get public transport to the University of Nevada rather than web-slinging. He didn't yet have the lay of the land, know where it was safe to change, where he could scale down a building in plain clothes where no one had a clear line of sight on him, and other such important logistics. He also didn't want to deal with possible sweat patches. A problem he was beginning to suspect would afflict him anyway. What would have taken about five minutes as the spider swings was going to take about forty minutes as plain ol' Ben.

The role as research assistant at the university in the branch of biochemistry was a god send. It was exactly the sort of job he was looking for. The fact that it meant he could also work towards his masters' degree was an added benefit that he was hoping to capitalise on. That is, if he could get over his nerves.

" _Sure, giants who look like Rhinos, psychopathic alien symbiotes, and my ex-best friend's dad who killed the love of my life I don't bat an eyelid at but this…Ker-ist"._

When he arrived he thanked the driver and climbed off onto the main campus. A quick check of the map showed he was in the right place and he headed to the relevant building. A broadly smiling woman greeted him, took his name and showed him to the waiting area where one other candidate sat.

"Hi, I'm Ben…Ben Reilly," he held out his hand. She looked taken aback for a second, she had her game face on and wasn't expecting to find one of her competitors to be quite as friendly.

"Cindy Moon," she said and flicked a little smile to him. If Ben had to guess she was of mixed heritage, being partially East Asian, though he had never had the skill for narrowing ethnicities down in his mind.

"This is tense, huh," Ben said with a shrug as he sat down and then straightened his tie. The girl looked over at him. He could tell that she was clearly thinking this was him playing some game to psych her out.

"Nah, I don't really rate the competition," she smiled and shook her head.

"Ouch," Ben held his hand to his heart. "Maybe I'm a dark horse candidate. Maybe I'm a world expert on some interesting field, like super human physiology?"

"Maybe," Cindy raised her eyebrows and nodded her head. She raised her hand from behind the handbag she had placed on the seat next to her. Her cell phone was in hand, opened to an internet browser. "Or maybe you finished mid class in high school, college, have only had two relevant jobs and no published papers."

"I hate the internet," Ben pulled on his collar and sagged back in his chair. Traveller had set him up with credentials which were less than stellar when inventing an identity _'It would be easy to prove you weren't valedictorian, people go asking about a middle of the road student and memories get hazy.'_

"Hey, Sims is an impressive last job...especially if you were getting paid. I've taken my job at Walmart off my resume," Cindy grinned to him. "What we do to put us through college, eh?"

"So, Cindy Moon, since you know everything about me…what am I up against in this interview?"

Cindy sat forward and reached into her bag, pulling out her own file. She handed it over to Ben. He opened the brown folder and cast his eyes over the papers, flicking through. He whistled as he did so. "Taxi!" he said as he mimed a hail. "Hey, I loved this paper! Really innovative," he said as he read through the abstract.

Cindy stood up and moved to sit next to Ben. He watched her cross the room before looking away, not wanting to stare. "It was fascinating," she said with a nod, a grin spreading across her face like an excited child. "I only managed to get my name as the last researcher because I was the one who suggested we run the Wilcoxon comparison against Kurt Connor's paper on zoonotic illness in rodents."

"That was well worth being the penultimate researcher if you ask me," Ben nodded and did a minor mock round of applause.

"I thank you," Cindy did a little bow at the waist "I, of course, had to live off Ramen for the time…and my hamster got bird flu. Irony."

Ben let out a burst of laughter before silencing himself. "I hope to God you're kidding, or I just came across as an insensitive jerk to a girl who just lost her hamster."

Cindy opened her mouth to speak but turned her attention to the door as it opened and in walked a man in his mid-50s. He had a huge bushy beard and his long hair tied in a ponytail behind his head. He was in a white lab coat. "Mr Reilley, if you'd kindly follow me."

Ben nodded and stood up. "Good luck. Make sure you play up the Sims link," Cindy said to him with a little smile.

"I know you don't mean that," said Ben quietly with a smile as he picked up his papers.

"Yeah, but now I look like a good person. Plus how else do I flirt with a cute underperforming genius before I take the job he's applying for?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Ms Moon, I think you're trouble."

Ben followed the interviewer out of the room glancing back over his shoulder at Cindy as he went.

 _Thirty minutes later…._

Ben stood in the main quad of the university. He didn't quite know why but he felt the need to stretch. He suspected what he actually needed was to clear out the cobwebs and spend some time swinging through the city.

He looked back at the building he had just exited. Debated for a second whether to hang around a while and see if Miss Cindy Moon followed him out into the sunshine so that he could continue their chat from before his interview. Then decided that crossed over into creepy territory.

He set off walking into the heart of the campus rather than towards the bus stop. He was definitely going to swing away from here if he could. He first just needed to find somewhere to get changed. He was trusting his spider-sense to go off if he was anywhere that he was being watched.

The campus was quiet at the moment with most of the undergrads having already headed home to wherever they called home for the summer. It was a nice campus, lush verdant grass filled set quads of the university but it was clear this was a desert with various parts of the landscaping filled with rocks and cactus.

Ben looked down an alleyway that looked promising. There were a few large bins for kitchen waste wedged in the gap between the two buildings and what looked like some kind of boiler room or maintenance door at the very end. The only windows were small and frosted, since the view wasn't really spectacular.

He walked down the alley opening his satchel, which contained his costume. He slid it out whilst putting his papers and valuables like cell phone and wallet into the bag. He slipped on the mask first just in case anyone did see him and then he began to climb. He changed full on the roof and swung away.

 _China…._

The hooded figure darted through the busy city streets dodging and avoiding collisions as he went with grace. It looked like ballet to the one onlooker who was following him closely. To anyone else he was just a blur.

He jumped into the back alley, spring-boarding from the side of a lamppost, and rolling across the floor. He turned and glanced behind him before turning again to look where he was going. He ran head first into the figure who was chasing him.

He was dressed in a well-tailored suit, a purple cravat. His hair was tied back behind his head in a ponytail. The prey launched backwards and dropped into a defensive stance, bringing his arms up in-front of him into a claw formation.

"Ah, the Sacred Mantis." The gentleman nodded in recognition before walking forward into a flurry of blows. He didn't flinch, he didn't dodge and he didn't counter. In minutes the Sacred Mantis, 95th of his line was no more.

 _Las Vegas strip_ _,_ _The Bellagio…_

Mr Black and Mr Blue walked across the main floor chatting to one another. They were in their 50s. "Tom Jones is back for an anniversary show. I know a guy who can definitely get us tickets!"

"Blue Man Group," said Mr Blue motioning to himself. "Come on, it's a no brainer."

"Blue guys splashing around in paint. I don't know," Mr Black screwed up his face "you can't beat a classic crooner. Jones is an icon, he's the closest thing we've got to Sinatra left. Just think about that voice reverberating around your chest. No brainer indeed!"

"You can't just push aside the Blue like that, they're one of the top selling shows of all time." He nodded to an old gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt and a fishing hat as he walked past. He instantly fell backwards clutching his chest.

 _Downstairs…_

The four armed guards who stood outside one of the most heavily fortified vaults in the world hit the floor with wet thumps following the bullets which had just dispatched them in short order. The two men who had been standing on the street the night before watching the Scarlet Spider were flanked by three others.

The plan was working perfectly. They had deactivated the motion and heat sensors, had gotten five guys on the inside to disable other key systems, had seven different distractions happening both in the casino and on the street, had managed to blackmail the guy who wrote the random door coding system, and had another one being held hostage.

"All that remains now is to enter the code and…"

The room rumbled. The men looked at each other and then the floor, as the two feet thick concrete they stood on, which was built three levels underground, began to rupture and fracture.

A giant armoured orange arm thrust through the floor, followed by the rest of Armadillo. He dusted himself off before lumbering towards the door to the vault. He gripped it, his claws bending and digging into the metal. He heaved the door and tore through it like it was made of paper.

He grinned to himself as he slung the huge bag about the size of an industrial refrigerator from his back and began to pile money by the thousands into it from the stacks of cash placed in standardised stacks around the room.

"Hey," yelled one of the guys who pointed his weapon at Armadillo.

Armadillo turned and looked at him quizzically. "This was our robbery, we had it timed PERFECTLY!" His voice went high and shrill. "Now here you come with your big oversized orange bloody claw hands and ruin it! It was going to be a work of art."

Armadillo looked at the men before snatching up a wodge of cash. He threw it behind him to them "For your troubles…seems like it was a waste of time though, huh?"

The men opened fire with their weapons, stopping once they had unloaded a full clip. Armadillo now turned to glare at them. "Did this plan of yours require split second timing and some fancy shenanigans to get the money and get away without being caught?"

"Uh, yeah," said one of the guys who was slightly taken back by the fact their bullets had done no damage at all. Armadillo nodded and leapt towards them, he curled into a ball and careered through where they were standing sending the men scattering one way or another like bowling pins. They collapsed in heaps along the corridor.

"What a stupid idea," he continued to fill his bags.

 _Minutes later…_

The sirens attracted the attention of the Scarlet Spider. Whereas the other criminals' plan was a scalpel, which no one would have known about until they were already on their privately rented plane, Armadillo's was recorded not only by the security at the casino, the bystanders above, and the police, but also a seismic monitoring station some 50 miles away.

He exploded up onto the street still spinning. His bags tucked safely into the middle of the ball. He rolled forward building up speed thanks to the internal workings of the bio-suit which he had long ago been bonded wit.

The wall of the fountain exploded as his body rocketed through it and rolled through the shallow fountain water, the same was repeated on the other side as his huge figure exploded onto the street.

Scarlet Spider swung in at his top speed, angling his body to produce the most force possible as he slammed into the side of the giant bouncing ball that was the criminal Armadillo. This sent him spinning sideways.

Armadillo popped into his quadruped form and turned to face his foe. "Spider-"

"Scarlet Spider," corrected Scarlet Spider instantly from the position he stood facing the villain. "I think we even met once…or maybe I'm thinking of my Sandshrew from Pokemon Blue. Mr Scratches - return!" he called out as he stretched a hand rapidly filling with a ball of impact webbing. "Silly me, that's not how this works."

He fired the thick blob of webbing towards Armadillo as the villain took two bounding leaps forward before turning once again into a ball on the third. The pavement fractured and ruptured underneath him.

Scarlet Spider leapt into the air spinning on all three axis as the villain rumbled below him. He fired a blast of web onto one of the sides of Armadillo before yanking his arm back, changing its direction. He rolled back into the fountain away from traffic.

The drivers of the cars thankfully seemed to have the common sense to get out of the way, fleeing their cars or trying to pull them over to the side to avoid the destruction.

Armadillo popped up to his feet again. "Damn, moneys getting wet," he yelled before stomping forwards to where Scarlet Spider was standing in the street. He picked up speed as he ran, he grabbed the engine block of one of the vehicles, and turning in a sharp circle, hurled it like an Olympic hammer through the air towards Scarlet Spider.

The hero dropped backwards, bending at the knees, and letting his shoulders hit the floor. He twisted his head to view behind him and unleashed three large blobs of impact webbing right into the central mass of the bystanders who weren't going to get clear in time. The force sent them flying backward to relative safety, though one did suffer a broken rib.

The car crashed loudly on the deck beyond Ben, sending shards of glass hurtling in all directions. He kicked up to his feet only to find the shadow of Armadillo falling across him as the giant figure leapt towards him, going for a destructive body slam.

Scarlet launched sideways letting Armadillo land face first on the floor. He launched forward quickly with a strong kick to the face. Armadillo swept sharply in a circle managing to let his tail slam across the ribs of the hero sending him hurtling back. His spider-sense had went off but he had not been able to move quick enough to totally escape the blow.

"Out of practice," he said with an exhale as he pushed himself up off the floor like he was doing a press-up. He kept his hands on the floor thrusting his knees to his chest before rotating and planting both feet on the floor. He pushed up with his full force leaping backwards in a somersault as the body of Armadillo hurtled through the space where he had just been.

He landed both feet onto Armadillo's back in a strong double kick slamming the villain into the floor. He fired two threads of web towards the floor at Armadillo's hands pinning them to the floor. "Well, that wasn't too hard," he said with a shrug.

The Armadillo rose up from the floor. He yelled as he pulled his arms free of the floor, bringing huge chunks of concrete with him where the webbing had stuck it to his hands.

He turned and swung giant concrete fists at Scarlet Spider. He leapt back in a handstand flip. "Spoke too soon."

" _Come on Pete...Ben! Stop playing around. This could get out of control and people could get hurt."_ He began to think of battles 'he' had had against Rhino and The Big Wheel. He needed some kind of mix of the strategies.

"Why couldn't you let me take the money?" yelled Armadillo as he strode towards Scarlet Spider swinging his arms in huge haymaker swings, which Ben had to duck and dive between. "That's all I wanted and then I would have left!"

"Oh, well, why didn't you just say so?" Ben held up his hands and took a few bounding leaps backwards. "To save everyone the trouble, why don't you just go then?"

Armadillo raised his eyebrows underneath the plates. "Really?"

"No." Ben shook his head. "Seriously, I always wonder on animal based villains if you take on their intelligence or something." He threw out both hands and fired web-lines onto the bags around his neck before yanking it away and hurling it down the street. "Nobody better take any of…whoa!"

Armadillo launched forward with a roar of anger. Scarlet launched himself backwards and began to unleash blob after blob of webbing into the face of the villain until it was completely covered. Scarlet rocked back before launching forward himself. He ducked at the last second before throwing his shoulder into the stomach of Armadillo. He followed up with three strong left hand blows into his stomach before pivoting at the waist and dropping him backwards from his shoulders into the floor.

"Look, Sandshrew, have you ever known a villain like yourself to beat a hero? The best you can hope for is a draw and you get away, but statistics tell us that you're spending some time in Bill's PC. So what's say we just call it quits before I have to break your jaw?"

Armadillo looked at him and roared a scream again. Ben clasped his hands together and leapt into the air before bringing both hands down across the face of Armadillo. His lights went out.

Ben stood up on the chest of the downed villain and waved to the crowd who were now gathering around snapping photos. His watch began to beep. "Oh, crap, I'm late!" He leapt into the air and with one whip of webbing he swung away.

 _Circus Circus…_

Lithe, flexible, and healthy bodies filled the performance area at Circus Circus. It, as always when there were auditions, was a magnet for some of the finest performers around the world. The judging panel were moving around the room watching as the performers ran through their set pieces on the equipment that they had rotated onto. They would occasionally ask someone to stop and redo something or to try doing a different manoeuvre they wanted to see.

Ben stood somewhat nervously by the pommel horse waiting for the person before him to finish. He was lucky to have been given an opportunity. This being his only one now, once he arrived and began to get changed, he got the dreaded phone-call from the university. They had went with another candidate.

"Okay you, Mr Latecomer," spoke the woman in a thick Russian accent. She was about 60 and was dressed in a leotard. Her slightly greying hair was pulled back sharply making her face very angular. Ben nodded.

"Thank you," he nodded sheepishly. He was dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a loose fitting T-shirt. Everyone else was in tights and uni-tards. A design Ben oddly felt more comfortable in.

"Take off your shirt," she commanded as he got next to the horse.

"Pardon?"

"Take off your shirt, we need to see your physique through your manoeuvres," she commanded again with a distinct air of authority in her voice as she spoke.

Ben nodded and capitulated. He was obviously in good shape, slim and toned. Surprisingly not muscular but a lean and wiry body shape which came from having steel hard muscles. He seized the pommel horse handles and hauled himself into a handstand.

He proceeded to move through the space spinning on his hands. Using his own momentum to swing his body through fast and more daring lunges. He gripped the edge of the horse and swung his body underneath, moving his hands with him to power him skyward again where he was able to grab the handles once more.

"Stop!" commanded the judge. A small group had managed to gather now watching him. They looked interested to say the least. "Can I see you on the parallel bars?"

Ben nodded and moved over to the two bars and did a little hop to reach the higher of the two. He tensed his arms doing a chin up before spinning around the bar, he released with one hand and added some angular momentum to pick up speed. He began to spin and whirl around the bar using both his hands and his knees to grip at them at various points. His body hurtled from one bar to the other, he for a few moments got lost in the movements enjoying the use of his powers for a means other than saving his skin.

He finished by spinning around the bar six times before using his momentum to fling himself into the air feet first. He span turning his Sagittal and Frontal planes before tucking his knees and cannonballing down, catching the lower bar at the very last second, so late that the professional gymnasts gasped, before dismounting and landing on his feet perfectly.

"Impressive power, agility, and speed. You performed moves which are of a world class standard," Ben smiled at her assessment, "….you did them with no finesse, form or expertise. It's like you were trained by a spasiming circus monkey."

"I…"

She held up a finger and silenced him. That was something some of the toughest supervillains and psychopaths in the world had tried to do and she had done it offhandedly. "Worst of all, you are dangerous and foolhardy. I don't trust you with the safety of these other performers."

"Stop everything!" barked a man as he appeared on the edge of the performance area. He was a short man about 5'6, he was in his early 60s and had a black greying flat top. His moustache nestled on his bottom lip like some cross between Geraldo and Hitler. He chomped down on a cigar as he strode over to the Russian woman. Ben if not for the darker skin town and the fact that he wasn't wearing a $15 suit would have mistaken him for Jameson himself.

"Madame Yemelin, we have more openings than intended." He grinned widely and turned to look at all the performers like he expected them to faun over him. "The media and the tourists are going wild. I've got the perfect idea for a new showpiece." He took a step back and motioned as if he was seeing a sign up in lights "The adventures of Vegas Spider-Man…no Spider-Man in Sin City….we'll think of a title later."

Madam Yemelin barely raised an eyebrow at him. "We need villains, love interest, full set pieces of people to save. Hire everyone who isn't crap."

"Mr. Towsie, you may be the part owner and manager of this complex but I have final say on the performers," she looked down at the list on her clipboard "There are fifteen or sixteen names on here who I think are worthy of our company and they are all we will hire to perform."

Towsie opened his mouth. Yemelin silenced him with another raised finger, Ben was glad this was not just a power she had over him. He twisted his face and nodded.

"Mr Reilley," she said turning to Ben "You will be number 16….strictly on a trial basis. You have more raw talent than any gymnast I have ever seen and so you will train and be paid 50% of a fee. I will make you cry, I will make you bleed…and one day you will be allowed to perform. Do you agree?"

She held out her hand to shake Ben's. Ben paused for a moment weighing his options and then held out his own to accept the job.

"You won't regret it ma'am," he said with a smile. In the back of the mind knowing the hectic life he lived he knew he was lying.

 _The Bellagio…_

The manager of the casino sat behind his sizeable oak desk, he was sweating cobs as he sat staring at the man opposite him, whilst also trying not to look at him. He was not usually a man to back down. It was how he had risen to his current role.

"Mr Grazio, I hope you have rethought our earlier discussion." His voice had a tinny sound which was disconcerting and set the gentleman's teeth on edge.

"You are a criminal; I'm well aware of how your little 'insurance scheme' works. I know you were behind this attack today…do you realise how much it has cost us? And you expect me to 'hire' you. This is classic organised crime."

"What you have to do," said the gentleman opposite as he sat forward, he spoke calmly without raising his unusual voice, "is realise you have no option. You have to understand what is best for business. I would hate for something else to happen to your business." He smiled, the smile of a shark about to take a chunk out of a baby seal. He held out his obsidian hand which extended from beneath his white suit sleeve.

"You have a deal, you son of a bitch," he said with a grimace as he touched the other man's hand.

"I can assure you, Mr Grazio. Your casino is going to go from strength to strength. You have the word of your new business partner: Mr. Negative." He smiled his black teeth and sat back in his chair like the two were old friends having a pleasant chat.

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to be continued...


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